Eva Rausing contacted police over 1986 assassination of Swedish PM

Eva Rausing, the late wife of the Tetra Pak billionaire Hans Kristian Rausing,
handed information on the unsolved assassination of the Swedish Prime
Minister to the country’s prosecutors before she died, officials said last
night.

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Eva Rausing, left, is said to have uncovered information about the murder of Olof Palme in 1986.Photo: REX FEATURES/REUTERS

Reports in Sweden suggested Mrs Rausing had contacted a leading investigative journalist, claiming she had recently discovered who killed Mr Palme.

She was said to have suggested it was an entrepreneur, who has not been identified, who was behind the killing because they feared that the Prime Minister was a threat to his business.

She had emailed Gunnar Wall in June last year under a subject heading "I know who killed Olof Palme".

She wrote: "My name is Eva Rausing and I am married to Hans K Rausing and I recently found out from my husband, whom I have been married to for 20 years, that XX was behind the murder of Olof Palme.

"My husband had found out by coincidence many years ago and it affected him very, very badly. I think I know where the murder weapon is hidden.

"I am afraid of XX. He is not a good man but I would never tell any of this if it wasn’t true."

The e-mails were also found by British police on her computer, according to Sweden's National Criminal Police.

Unconfirmed reports in the Swedish newspaper Expressen last week claimed the Palme investigative team wanted to question Mr Rausing, about information his wife said he had given her about the Palme murder.

The newspaper said she contacted Palme investigators in 2010 but that they did not consider her information credible. It did not provide any details on what she claimed to know

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in Stockholm (Picture: EPA)

Despite being reportedly afraid of the alleged killer, she also claimed she knew where the murder weapon was hidden.

"I can confirm that Eva Rausing contacted the Palme investigators and that we have received information from British authorities," she said in a statement.

"I cannot disclose any other information about the status of the investigation," she said.

She declined to say why investigators considered the information pertinent.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Yes, we are in the possession of some information and that has been passed on to the Swedish authorities."

He directed further questioning to the Swedish authorities.

Blood on a street in downtown Stockholm, Sweden, after the assasination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986 (Picture: AP)

Mr Palme was shot dead by a lone gunman on the evening of February 28, 1986, shortly after leaving a cinema to walk home with his wife Lisbet, who was also wounded.

The murder, which sent shock waves through Sweden, has never been solved despite hundreds of thousands of leads over two and a half decades.

Sweden scrapped its 25-year statute of limitations on murder in 2010 and the investigation continues.

Over the years, Turkish Kurd rebel group PKK, the Swedish military and police as well as the South African secret service have been suspected of the killing.

Mr Palme's family remains convinced they know who did it.

Christer Pettersson, a petty criminal and an alcoholic and drug addict, was identified by Palme's widow in a widely-criticised line-up nearly three years after the murder.

He was convicted of the crime in July 1989 but was set free months later by an appeals court due to lack of evidence. He died in 2004.

Earlier this month Mr Rausing, 49, whose Swedish grandfather founded the Tetra Pak packaging empire, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to preventing her lawful burial.

Mr Rausing admitted hiding her dead body for two months because he "did not want her to leave". Her decomposing remains were discovered under a pile of clothes.